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Incitement to Murder

Aasia Bibi, sentenced to hang for blasphemy after an argument with her neighbours, may be Christian, but she is also poor and a woman:

The complainant was a local clergyman Qari Mohammad Salam. He was neither present at the place of occurrence nor personally heard the blasphemous words allegedly uttered by Aasia Bibi. Muslim women who worked with Aasia Bibi in the falsa fruit fields of a local landlord informed him on June 19, 2009 that on June 14, Aasia uttered blasphemous remarks about the Prophet (PBUH) and the Quran.

The two sisters admitted in evidence that a quarrel took place regarding drinking water that Aasia brought, which was declared as ‘unclean’ and they refused to drink it. The complainant stated that she confessed her guilt before a religiously charged mob.

Now another powerful man has brazenly, and without seemingly any fear of legal sanction, offered money to anyone prepared to kill Aasia.

According to this morning’s print version of the Express Tribune, Maulana Yousaf Qureshi, a prominent cleric who also solicited the murder of the Danish cartoonists, has offered Rs500,000, around $6000, for Aasia to be killed:

We expect her to be hanged and if she is not hanged then we will ask the mujahideen and the Taliban to kill her.

So a peasant woman risks the death penalty for something she may or may not have said, but an influential man is able to commit flagrant crimes and have them spread across the newspapers, and fears not even the slightest penalty.

Global Dashboard explores global risks and international affairs, bringing together authors who work on foreign policy in think tanks, government, academia, and the media. It was set up in 2007 and is edited from the UK by Alex Evans and David Steven. Read more here